For nine luxurious days, 26-year-old Christopher J. Warren lived like a king, jet-setting around the world on a private plane, taking limousines to palatial hotels and carrying possibly millions in cash and gold with him.
The Sacramento businessman hop-scotched from Las Vegas to Ireland to a luxury resort on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in Lebanon, and then back to North America, where he landed in Toronto.
The fantasy life ended Tuesday night on the Peace Bridge, which connects Buffalo with Fort Erie, Ontario.
It was there that Warren, who had taken a taxi from Toronto, was met by federal officers. Agents had been tracking his travels since he fled a federal probe of what authorities say was one of the nation's largest real estate frauds.
When he was nabbed, authorities said, Warren had $70,000 in a shoe, $5,800 worth of platinum, phony passports and plenty of stories to tell his cellmates while he awaits trial.
"He was a man of style and means, all of it stolen," acting U.S. Attorney Larry Brown said Wednesday in Sacramento.
Warren was one of three fugitives under scrutiny in a federal probe of Roseville-based Loomis Wealth Solutions, which authorities say was a front for a Ponzi scheme that spread over five states and cost investors at least $100 million.
All three fled the country as federal investigators began to close in.
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